Free Traveler by Melanie Jackson

strong. “I guess we’re ready then.”
    “As ready as we can be.”
    And she was ready. An afternoon up in the solitude of the treehouse had helped her clarify her feelings and sort them out from facts. Fact one: Goblins were pushing their addictive fruit and killing people. So far, their victims had been willing, but that could change.
    Fact two: Horroban was working on something new and nasty on the drug front, and in all likelihood Neveling Lutin was involved.
    Another fact: H.U.G. wasn’t going to be any help because bitterness over an old love affair had Xanthe looking the wrong way, and however much she wanted to, Io couldn’t stop the goblins on her own.
    Talk about a one-two punch.
    Last fact: The police couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything this time about what was going on inside Goblin Town.
    That left Io’s feelings. Those were trickier bits to catalog and deal with. They were as basic as breathing and just as hard to resist. She wanted Jack—badly. But she also wanted emotional safety. Chances were she couldn’t have both, not indefinitely. Maybe not at all.
    Yet perhaps she could juggle her emotions long enough to stop Horroban. Surely she could say no to Jack and make it stick for the next two weeks. Lust was not that overwhelming. It just couldn’t be.
    “You’re thinking again,” Jack accused as they set off down the street, forcing a path through the throngs of tipsy tourists. The crowds were getting thicker now that the witching hour—and the traditional free drinks at midnight—were near. Fortunately, with Jack along, people tended to get out of the way.
    “Someone’s gotta do it,” Io answered, matching her stride to his. She was glad she had worn boots with moderate heels. “So, do you have a plan?”
    “The general outlines of one.”
    “Oh good. I’d hate to think we were just making this up as we went along.”
    “Not spontaneous, are we?”
    “Not in situations where I can die.”
    Jack let his eyes travel up and down her once and then grinned. “That’s a real shame, ’cause I can think of one situation—”
    “Let’s leave the thinking to me,” Io interrupted. She was not going to flirt with Jack. “I’ll be the brain and you be the brawn.”
    “But you have the fist of steel. Why should I play the troll?”
    “Because you look more like one,” she answered untruthfully. The wrench the words caused told herthat Jack still had his truth spell even if he wasn’t using it on her at the moment.
    “How do you do it?” she demanded after a moment.
    “What? Look like a troll? You know what they say about the correlation between the size of a man’s nose and the size of his—”
    “Jack!” Io kept her voice low. They were entering a less crowded part of town, but Io hadn’t explored the business district before.
    “What I meant was, how do you keep your spells? You still have your invisibility too. I can feel it.”
    “I didn’t leave town,” Jack answered. “I found a place to crash down at Brush Park.”
    “Oh. That makes sense.” Io nodded, though she didn’t care for the idea of sleeping in the ruins of Brush Park. She would never feel safe enough to sleep out there.
    “I buy extra spells off of junkies who need money for a fix. Sometimes people drop spells…A little tweaking, a little power and—voilà—a customized spell.”
    Io didn’t approve of giving money to the junkies, but she supposed it was more ethical than simply stealing their magic. It also kept them from mugging tourists for the cash to get their fixes.
    “It might be a good idea if you did the same thing,” Jack suggested, lowering his voice. “One of these days, Xanthe is going to figure out what you’rereally doing, and she is going to try to pull you out of the game.”
    Xanthe! Io swore.
    “What?” Jack looked down at her, his brows drawing together. “And where did you learn gutter troll?”
    “We need to find a safe place,” Io told him. “Somewhere that I can